Well, despite my initial poor impressions of Wildstar, I went ahead and picked it up after my second go went a lot better. Having a few friends to play with also influenced the decision but, all in all, I am very glad I picked it up. It’s not perfect, far from it, but it is fun. Its also incredibly well developed and that is something you have to admit, whether you like the game or not.
You can tell that many of the original WoW devs had a hand in this game. You can really tell. Not just the graphic style, though that is certainly part of it, not just the quest hub style of game play, though that is certainly part of it too but also in just how well crafted it is. The game just feels really well put together. Its also chock full of things to do. Completionists are going to have a heart attack with this game. Tons of quests, lots of stuff to do with your Path, books and artifacts all over the place and tons of challenges. Every zone has an amazing number of things to do.
I initially rolled on Pergo (PvP) for the headstart but quickly found a gigantic queue waiting for me there so we moved over to Bloodsworn. Bloodsworn still has a queue at times but not near as bad as Pergo. The initial hours of the game went about like one would expect from a MMO release. Scheduled to go live for headstart at 2AM, we didn’t get into the game until 2:30AM. There were rumors of a DDOS attack on Wildstars servers and that is certainly a possibility.
Once you got in game, it was smooth. About as smooth of a launch as I have seen. A bit of lag here, some frame rate issues there but overall very solid. Matter of fact, the queues are about the only problem I have seen with launch. There are a few bugs here and there and some frame rate issues but nothing out of the ordinary and nothing as bad as the huge bugs and botting problem that Elder Scrolls is having. Right now, I would put their launch equal to or maybe even better than Rift’s and that is saying something.
